


What It Actually

by thescyfychannel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Multi, No Actual Character Death, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 00:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19346023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescyfychannel/pseuds/thescyfychannel
Summary: You...didn't really expect to end up where you ended up. Sure, you wanted to be a Cavalreaper, once upon a really long time? But, uh. This, it's a lot better. You're pretty sure it is.





	What It Actually

**Author's Note:**

  * For [baronohm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baronohm/gifts).



> "I'd like to see an AU where Sburb didn't happen. Instead, Feferi's desires for a kinder and more tolerant Alternia would come to a head with, well, what we know of Alternia. Perhaps these four, having had more time for their relationships to meld and grow together, are plotting against the Condesce or flying off together to live somewhere away from the violence. A mix of drama and fluff would be good and, given the no rating, if you want to add some more mature themes or intense makeouts go right ahead!"
> 
>  
> 
> I had a plan and then this story took over. I hope you like it, though!

It didn't actually start out as a full-fledged rebellion.

Actually, it didn't start out as much of anything. 

 

Once upon a time, the four of you, young trolls just fresh past adult molts all, had been sitting around bitching about the state of things. It was a pretty common feature, as far as you knew! Although, generally, such cohorts didn't include the descendant of the fucking _Empress_ , the descendant of the strongest psionic that ever lived, the descendant of a troll so feared by highbloods that they called her a demon instead, and you, the descendant of a notorious rebel who'd nearly made it big.

That, in and of itself, would have been a cause for major concern! Or at least, it would have, if it weren't for the fact that the Empress wasn't really given to caring what trolls back on the home planet got up to. "Silly grubs with their silly games" was the official word, according to Feferi. You...kinda believed it. Even if you wished you didn't.

"I mean! What else do we _have_  to look forward to? Being part of some great legion? It's all the same! She'll toss us wherebber she wants us and use us until we're broken!"

"FF—"

Aradia gently wraps a hand around Sollux's mouth. The both of you know where this is going— _FF, that doesn't apply to you_ —and the both of you would prefer that he _not_  go there, because even thinking about the Challenge is a surefire way to bring down the mood for, well, everyone. "We should run away!" Her gazeorbs are cheerful-bright, and you immediately pick up the thread.

"Uh...I could find some maps? We could...you know, stake out a deserted island. Or something."

Sollux immediately looks like a scalded cat. "We'd get eaten within three nights, the oceans are full of vicious seadwellers, holy shit, TV, you're trying to get us killed."

Feferi rolls her eyes and carefully leans in—you have to hide a snicker. She is very gently biting down on Sollux's ear. "Tafheth too gamy." 

 _"FF."_ You and Aradia do not bother to hide your snickers. This is a Just and Righteous return, as far as you're concerned. Sollux, meanwhile, looks abandoned and appalled. "Stop encouraging her!"

With a burst of laughter, Feferi stops chewing on Sollux's ear. It's barely even gone yellow, or at least, the bitten part is not nearly as yellow as the rest of his face as she starts kissing up towards his mouth. There's probably something else you could say, but one thing rapidly leads to another, and the four of you end up rather occupied for several long hours.

 

* * *

 

So you think everyone's forgotten your little idea, because no one else brings it up for about...oh, a perigee. You think? Time is still a little iffy in your memory, at that point in time, but you know it had to be at least a perigee because you were planning Aradia's wriggling day party when Sollux sidled up to you and asked, in a quiet voice, about the maps you'd once mentioned.

"Maps to where?" You're distracted, just a bit, but that's mainly because Sollux had declined the "honor" of hanging the floriographical garlands that Aradia had specifically requested (despite the fact that he could do so without upright climbing bar structures or the misuse of sitting four-legged squares), which meant that you were perched on the edge of something, swaying gently in a nonexistent breeze, as you attempted to hang each one.

"You know, the, uh, deserted islands, the ones you were talking about with AA."

You hadn't fallen off the ladder in shock, but only because he actually used his psionics to catch you. Otherwise, it was a fairly close run thing, and probably would not have worked out well in your favor. "You want the maps to deserted islands? Sollux, were were joking, uh—"

"Never mind," he tells you, and sets you down. You can tell there's something firing off wrong with him, by the way he keeps up his nervous hover, about six inches off the ground. "Forget it."

It doesn't take much for you to come to a decision. "Help me with these," you tell him, and he obeys, picking up one end of the garland and flying it to the inquisition curve shaped hook that your hive has for just such a purpose. "So, uh. I don't have any of those maps on me? But it wouldn't be too hard to find some, I know someone we can ask..."

Just like that, he already looks much happier. Some of the awful feeling that's been congealing in the pit of your digestion sac slowly eases away.

 

Still, it takes you a little while to work yourself up to actually asking your source for the maps. Long enough, actually, that your decision on who, specifically, you're going to ask is _sort of_  taken away.

 

* * *

 

"What are you looking at?"

Aradia has papers spread all across the softness piles of her hive, and they look like they're threatening a slow march upwards. It wouldn't be the first time, so you wouldn't be surprised, but the intensity with which she's staring at a particular sheet, it's got you kind of wondering.

Also, the fact that she...doesn't answer? That's got you wondering too.

"Ara?"

This time her head snaps up, and she blinks at you, looking confused. "Tavros? What are you doing here?"

"Uh," you say, glancing at the timekeeping device on the upright support structure of your hive. "We had that non-fatal FLARP meeting today? Or, have, in fifteen minutes."

"Shit, right," she says, and starts rolling up the papers. You get down on the ground to help, and start to notice—

"These are maps," you say. This wouldn't be unusual, except, you recognize the handwriting (violet) on almost all of them (there are scattered other colors but two shades of blue take close second to the violet) and Aradia is looking a little more...cagey, perhaps? Oh, and also: "These are maps of deserted islands?"

"You gave me an idea," she says, and you feel a little more relief sink into your think pan support structure.

"Thank fuck," you tell her, handing over another roll of paper. "I was just working up to asking you if we should talk to Eridan, Terezi, or Vriska."

 

* * *

 

And then there's Feferi, who, as it turns out, has not been thinking about any of this. At all.

You're the one to find out (not Sollux, not Aradia, thought you think they might have been the better choice) when she comes over to your hive for a date, and gives all the preparation work and planning you've been doing a long and confused sort of stare. "What exactly," she says, cutting across your rambling explanation, "do you mean?"

"Uh—" is all you can start with, because isn't it obvious? Shouldn't it be absolutely, perfectly clear? "We're going to rescue ourselves? And, uh, especially you?"

"Tavros," she starts, and you can see the compassion in her eyes, the _knowing_  compassion, the one that reminds you that yes, she is in fact related to )(er Imperious Condescension.

 _"No,"_  you say, and Feferi looks taken aback. "I do not want to hear it. Neither does Sollux, nor Aradia, nor anyone—anyone else we may or may not have spoken to."

Feferi is not stupid. Feferi _easily_  puts two and two together. You can see the think cogs turning, you can see her carefully working through the aspects of the plan, spoken and unsaid.

"This is dangerous," she finally says, several minutes later. "Treason, even. It would be reely bad if we're caught."

"Then we won't be caught," you say, and your bloodpusher soars on the wings you won't have for another few sweeps. 

 

You don't know it yet, but that extra molt will catch you all off guard, until it all suddenly makes so much more sense.

 

* * *

 

It didn't actually start out as much of anything. A little island, part of a chain of islands, all alike enough that you could easily move from one to the next, depending upon the threat. Vriska and Terezi came by sometimes, and once Terezi's lusus hatched, she came by more frequently so. Eridan practically had a second hive, there, although he wouldn't admit to wanting to stay. Aradia, the least objectionable and most objectively terrifying of the four of you, ventured to the mainland one day and returned with, to your great surprise, Karkat, who seemed determined to stay. All the rest filtered in at their own pace, Terezi dropping off Equius and Nepeta, Eridan coming back one startlingly bright day with Kanaya, Gamzee, dropped off by his lusus.

And then...

More trolls came. Trolls you knew from forums, from Non-Fatal FLARP campaigns, from one-off chats and side discussions and Fiduspawn games. Trolls you'd never expected to see again, trolls who'd evaded, run, snuck away from their fates.

It didn't actually start out as a full-fledged rebellion.

But there were so many of them, and they had nowhere else to stay.

 

* * *

 

"So, uh," you tell the latest arrivals. They're staring, wide-eyed, at what the four—more—of you have made. "That's the story? Welcome to the Harborage. If you have any questions, then—"

"Are you and the Renegade really in love? Is the Neoteric Unhelmed actually that powerful? How about the Handmaid's Descendant?"

You have to laugh, at the sight of this hopeful blue who can't be all that much more than six sweeps, but you hold it closely in, brimming over with a bright smile and newfound hope deep in your chest. "Sort of yes, to almost all of those. I think, maybe, you'll have to meet them all for yourself? Come on. It's right this way."

 

They follow you, and you can hear the gasps behind you when your wings catch the light, and, well.

You're starting to know that this _will_  all turn out okay.


End file.
